Category Archives: Baking

Alternate post title: HOW I RUINED MY STOVE MAKING MARQUISE AU CHOCOLAT W/ KAHLUA CRÈME ANGLAIS. More on that later.

This is the first February baking challenge from Tuesdays with Dorie and it is the perfect seductive, chocolate dessert to serve your Valentine! This recipe is a basic, frozen Chocolate Mousse, that can be dressed up any way you choose. Whipped cream, chocolate curls, fresh fruit, orange peel, liqueur…basically anything you think complements chocolate! I chose to make a Kahlua Crème Anglaise and to add some raspberries, as it was one of Dorie’s suggestions for this recipe from her latest cookbook, Baking Chez Moi. The Kahlua was my call!

This recipe begins with a lot of chopped chocolate, melted with creamy butter, over a Bain-Marie–how French!

Pile of chopped semi-sweet chocolate melting with butter

I stirred until the chocolate was smooth and glossy, then folded in the egg yolk mixture.

Folding in the egg yolks

I love the trippy swirl!

The last step is folding in whipped cream, which creates a lovely, thick batter.

I made sure I left no white streaks

Once it is combined the batter is transferred into a loaf pan lined with cling wrap. As usual, I did not have the patience to keep trying to smooth the cling wrap in the pan. I told myself the batter would smooth and flatten it. I carefully tried to smooth the top, but as you can see in the picture below, it looks like a monkey tried to smooth it! I’m really trying to improve my skills, but I often give up too easily, thinking the task impossible. Eh, I’ll cover the top with cream and berries!

I am blind to imperfection. I really thought this was fairly smooth!

The loaf pan was tightly wrapped and set in the freezer. Four hours later, it was time to unmold the Marquise. It was stubborn and did not want to come out. I put a casserole dish with warm water on my stovetop (all counter space was taken) and set the loaf pan inside to loosen things up. It worked!

Here is a pic of the bottom of my wrinkly loaf, due to my poor cling wrap smoothing skills!

Seriously, I can do better than this.

RIP MY STOVE

I didn’t realize it at the time, but as I was trying to loosen the mold on my stove, I must have sloshed some water over the side of the casserole pan into the lower right gas burner. This would prove fatal to my stove when I was at minute four of continuously whisking my Crème Anglais for 7-10 minutes, in a warm pan, on the aforementioned burner.

I was whisking away, when suddenly, the flame on my burner flared and WHOOSHED and the lights in the kitchen went out. My husband flipped the breaker and the lights returned, but two of the knobs on the stove started spewing black smoke as the wiring sizzled. The burners were clicking and I was sure there would be a glass explosion. I yelled for my husband, who crawled under the smoking stove and turned off the gas. On the bright side, I now have a nice, new stove. Clean, no scratches and burners that heat evenly.

I stood off to the side continuing to whisk the Crème Anglais. The stove was dead and the house reeked of burning wire, but I was able to save the crème! I continued to whisk it in the cooling pan, on the still hot burner, but it wasn’t thickening. Okay, so don’t tell The French, but I finished heating it in the microwave! Mon Dieu! Blasphème! I heated it for 20 seconds then stirred. I repeated this a number of times until I had a thick, pourable, delicious sauce!

Microwaved Crème Anglais. Look at all the lovely vanilla! Smell the Kahlua?

The chilled Crème Anglais was so good I wanted to eat it with a spoon. So I did…just a few spoonfuls! I’m glad I did because the flavor of the rather bold crème was totally overpowered by the rich chocolate of the cake. Even though I poured quite a bit onto the cake, the flavor was just swallowed up by the chocolate. The crème was better paired with the raspberries.

The finished product. Anyone who eats this rich and decadent dessert will instantly fall in love with you! Or love you more than they already do!

The Big Blizzard of 2015 arrived this morning and what better time to bake something decadent and delicious? Everybody knows calories don’t count when you’re snowbound and cut off from the rest of the world, right? This could be your dinner! No one has to know.

This is a Swedish chocolate cake known as Kladdkaka. It roughly translates as “sticky” cake. So rustically gorgeous! I saw this recipe on Pinterest about a week ago and flipped. A flourless chocolate cake flavored with wine? Sophisticated AND yummy. This cake has very few ingredients and is simple to make. I got the recipe here from Hummingbird High food blog. Thanks, Michelle!

This recipe starts with a whole lotta chopped chocolate. I used bittersweet.

Whipped up some eggs, sugar and vanilla for 5 minutes to get this lovely, pale yellow batter.

I folded the chocolate mixture into the egg mixture. I was supposed to fold until the batter was a uniform brown, but I gave up and poured this two-toned batter into the prepared springform pan. I think it looks pretty.

Baked the cake for 35 minutes, then let it cool on a rack for a couple of hours. I was so tempted to eat it warm, like a molten lava cake, but I exercised restraint.

When I finally tasted this cake I was floored! I’m embarrassed to admit it, but the phrase that passed through my head was OMFG! I’m also embarrassed to admit that I actually scarfed down the piece I was going to photograph. It was THAT good. A forkful of dense, creamy, dark chocolate, red wine deliciousness, with a delicate crumbling outer crust.

Here’s the piece I did photograph. Unfortunately, I am unable to center anything properly on a plate.

Don’t wait for Valentine’s Day. Make this ASAP and share it with anyone and everyone you love!

I made this simple, but delicious cake this weekend. It had a really dense crumb and was bursting with buttery, sugary goodness. It was fragrant with Madagascar vanilla bean and the house smelled wonderful while it was baking. And what a gorgeous golden color when sliced! It was a little dry, but perfect with a cup of coffee to moisten things up on the palate. I would definitely make this again and try out some different flavor profiles. The recipe called for rum, but I wanted the butter and vanilla flavors to be the star of the show!

The cake was very easy to make and called for simple ingredients and techniques. I wanted to make sure that the cake had a lot of flavor, so I used European butter with a higher fat content. I also used an extra long and plump vanilla pod to get as much vanilla flavor as possible.

The batter was loaded with vanilla bean specks and the aroma when I folded in the beautiful liquid browned-butter was spectacular. And what a lot of butter it was! I was worried I had used too much as the batter was just drowning in it. However, once it was all folded in, the batter was thick, smooth, glossy and perfect.

Once the batter was in the pan, I baked it for 60 minutes. I tented the pan with foil about 40 minutes in to prevent the cake from browning too quickly. The finished product was a rich golden brown color.

So there you have it! Weekend Cake! A staple in the repertoire of every French baker. Always on hand for impromptu guests, family snacking or a sweet reward for the happy baker. Bon Weekend!

This week’s baking challenge for Tuesdays with Dorie was a recipe for Granola Energy Bars.The recipe can be found in Baking Chez Moi by Dorie Greenspan. I have to admit I wasn’t too excited about making granola bars when there are so many decadent recipes in the book. I associate granola bars with the dry, brittle, “healthy” bars from the 70s, before they started dipping them in chocolate.

I did make the granola bars and I was surprised at how good a homemade, fresh granola bar can be. Especially when it’s loaded with nuts, dried fruit, chocolate chunks and coconut, all held together by thick, sweet rice syrup and lightly flavored with almond extract! I can’t stop eating them.

These were simple to make, especially after the time consuming Buche de Noel we made last month. I started making them after I put my grandson to bed at 8 and they were already cooling as I settled in on the couch to watch Downton Abbey at 9!

Here are a few pix I took with my camera phone throughout the process.

Getting ready to toast the oats and nuts.

I used cashews, almonds, walnuts and pepitas.

Oats, nuts, coconut and dried fruit.

I chopped the nuts in my food processor, but a few of the almonds escaped whole.

And some semi-sweet chocolate chunks for good measure.

Just in case the bars turned out dry, brittle or too “healthy” tasting.

Fresh from the oven.

A little ragged around the edges. I admit I did not have the patience to try to make a nice, neat rectangle with the buttered parchment paper. I just jammed the paper in as best as I could. The upside is that I got to eat all the jagged edges after I cut the bars into rectangles.

GRANOLA ENERGY BARS

I was not able to use the pictured tool to cut the granola bars. In the end I used a giant butcher knife. I had to apply a lot of pressure to cut the granola into bars and was seriously concerned I might lose a finger!

Overall, I’m glad I made these and I see so many possibilities for changing up the ingredients and flavorings. I’m thinking blueberries and white chocolate. Or maybe pecans with maple extract. Yum!

Coming soon: Brown Butter and Vanilla Bean Weekend Cake! Doesn’t that sound perfectly comforting on a cold, winter’s night? All cozy with a book and a hot mug of something? I think so!

It was so much fun to make this cake and learn some new baking techniques! The directions are so well-written that even the novice baker (me!) could follow them. It was a challenge, but what a feeling of accomplishment. I did not make anything ahead and tackled each step in order. There were enough pauses at the end of each step to work on the next step. The whole project had beautiful pacing built right in. I credit the genius of Dorie for that. It took me four hours to finish, but I felt amazing as I completed each step!

So, I started off making the pralines. I was slightly anxious as the flame on my burners are all uneven and the sugar was turning amber in some places and not others. It worked out fine and I took it off the stove when I got that strong caramel smell. This was based on a tip from another TWD baker.

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Next I prepared the baking pan and tackled the batter. This step and making the icing were the two components of the cake that I approached with much foreboding. What a nice surprise when the batter was much easier than I expected and was so fluffy and beautiful in the mixer bowl.

While the cake baked, I set out my rack, laid out the cotton dishtowel and liberally sprinkled the whole thing with powdered sugar. After the cake had cooled for five minutes, I mustered my courage and flipped it out onto the dishtowel. Perfect!

I used the towel to roll it and got a nice even roll. Again, I was so surprised that I was able to do this! I was really expecting disaster at every turn. (It did come eventually, in step 4 with the icing, but I’ll elaborate later).

While the cake came to room temperature I made the filling, then spread it on the cake. There was just enough filling. I would have liked a little bit more. Rolled it up and got a nice even, tight roll.

While the cake was setting in the fridge, I made the icing. Technique wise, everything went well. BUT, I used a pure, vanilla extract that was supposed to have a richer flavor. Perhaps I was supposed to use less than the recipe called for, but this vile vanilla ruined the icing! It had such a strong, bitter chemical taste and it completely overwhelmed the icing. Ahhh, I thought, here’s the disaster I’ve been expecting all along. I was soooo close to knocking it out of the ballpark! I didn’t have any eggs left to make another batch of icing, so I used the yuck batch. I knew it would look good in the pictures and that I could scrape it off before I ate the cake! (UPDATE: I’m revisiting the icing issue. I obsessed over why the icing was so disgusting and was craving the sweet, marshmallow flavor the other TWD posters were raving about. I made a batch of the icing again tonight, using a different vanilla and only 2 tsp instead of a whole tbsp. I made sure the syrup was the right temperature before I added it to the egg whites and immediately added the vanilla in case the alcohol needed to cook out. The icing was still bitter and inedible. Maybe I just don’t like this icing. Or maybe I have a genetic aversion to vanilla when mixed with sugar, cream of tartar and egg whites? You know, like the unfortunate people who taste cilantro as soapy because of a genetic predisposition? Whatever the case, I’m sticking with buttercream frosting!)

But even the icing disaster couldn’t really get me down, or the fact that I didn’t center the cake properly on the platter. I was just happy to have made my first fancy pants Buche de Noel! See how excited the snowman is? Victory!

How did it taste? Delicious. The cake is so fragrant and flavorful. The filling, both sweet and tangy, paired perfectly with the spiced cake. I scraped off as much icing as possible, but in small quantities, mixed with delicious cake, it wasn’t too bad. The pralines made the whole thing extra special. I know with the sweet, marshmallow frosting it would have been heaven on a plate!

I can’t wait to make this Gingerbread Buche de Noel from Dorie Greenspan’s fabulous cookbook, Baking Chez Moi : Recipes From My Paris Home To Your Home Anywhere! I’ve never made spongecake, or a rolled cake for that matter, but I have watched Dorie make the cake here. When it’s done, it should look like this. We’ll see…

Update: Ha Ha! I just looked at the recipe for the cake and the recipe looks quite complex. I may be way out of my league here! But I’m going to follow the directions and give it a shot. If it’s a total flop, I have it feeling it will make a pretty funny Pinterest fail!